Despite the development of numerous chemical agents and sophisticated regimens of drug therapy, the ravages of cancer continue to extract an ever-increasing human toll of suffering and death. Although many advances have been made, especially in the area of combination drug therapy, the need for new and better methods of treating neoplasms and leukemias has not diminished. This is especially evident in the area of inoperable or metastatic solid tumors, such as various forms of lung cancer.
To be especially useful, new chemotherapeutic agents should have a wide spectrum of activity, a large therapeutic index, and be chemically stable and compatible with other agents. In addition, any new agents having oral activity would be especially useful so that initial treatment and subsequent maintenance therapy would be made easily and without inconvenience or pain to the patient.
We have discovered a series of sulfonylureas which are useful in the treatment of solid tumors. The compounds are orally active and relatively non-toxic providing an excellent therapeutic index. Some of the compounds and their formulations are novel.
Certain sulfonylureas used in this invention are known in the art. Compounds such as 1-(4-fluoro-, 4-chloro-, 4-bromo-, and 4-methyl-phenyl)-3-[phenyl- and (4-chloro-, 4-bromo-, and 4-methyl-phenyl-)sulfonyl]urea are taught in Chemical Abstracts 71:11457w (1969), Holland, et al., J. Med. Pharm. Chem., 3 (1), 99 (1961), Gandhi, et al., Arzneim.-Forsch., 21, 968 (1971), Rajagopalan, et al., J. Org. Chem., 30, 3369 (1965), and Petersen, Chem. Ber., 83, 551 (1950). In general, these compounds are taught to have oral hypoglycemic activity. In addition, some antimycotic activity is noted and the compounds have also been prepared as derivatives of carbodiimides. The Holland reference also teaches the preparation of 1-(3-trifluoromethylphenyl)-3-(4-methylphenylsulfonyl)urea, although the compound is taught to be lacking hypoglycemic activity. A general review of compounds of this structural type is taught by Kurzer, Chem. Rev., 50, 1 (1952). No anti-tumor activity is disclosed or inferred in any of the above references.